<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>each a brief but perfect home by feverbeats</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22974049">each a brief but perfect home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/pseuds/feverbeats'>feverbeats</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman Beyond</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Nonbinary Character, Trans Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 15:15:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,153</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22974049</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/pseuds/feverbeats</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There are people who want to know how Batman works. Who want to know his real name, not knowing that Batman <i>is</i> his real name. There are people who want to see his face, or take him apart, rib by rib. Some of those people, if they knew about Becca Wayne, would ask how it's possible that they're the same person. Who would swear that Batman is a man.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>each a brief but perfect home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I didn't list any relationships because they're all mentioned in passing/not really the focus.</p><p>The ao3 warnings are <i>not</i> great at encapsulating what's going on, so have some additional warnings.<br/>-Major character death, but nothing outside canon<br/>-Blanket warning for Difficult Trans Content. Everything from misgendering to violence against trans women, to trans people being hard on each other and not ideal about gender stuff. Also note that it does reference the sexualized violent content toward Barbara that's in The Killing Joke.</p><p>Title from "Look Around" by Blues Traveler, and if there is only single song that's a Batman song, that's the one.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>BRUCE</b>
</p><p>Rebecca Wayne has never been real. Maybe when she was eight, before her parents died, she thought she was. But since then, she's been very clear. She's not a girl.</p><p>Alfred asks her, when she's eight, if she wants to do anything about it. He says he'll get her a suit. As if it's the easiest thing in the world.</p><p><i>No</i>, she says. She doesn't want that. She feels like an empty space that can't be filled by being somebody else.</p><p>It's not until high school that she starts to understand what belongs in those spaces. It's not until years later that she becomes who she is.</p><p>Batman coming to Gotham City doesn't mean that Becca leaves. She's still there, running Wayne Enterprises, going to parties, all of those things. But she's not real.</p><p>There are people who want to know how Batman works. Who want to know his real name, not knowing that Batman <i>is</i> his real name. There are people who want to see his face, or take him apart, rib by rib. Some of those people, if they knew about Becca Wayne, would ask how it's possible that they're the same person. Who would swear that Batman is a man.</p><p>He is. That's the solution. It's that simple.</p><p>The power of myth helps. His voice has always been pleasantly deep, just on the edge, so that he's able to push it, with time and work, into the realm of being Batman. The suit takes care of the rest. And he's as strong as he looks. That's real.</p><p>(There are people who've seen him naked, but such a small number. Mostly one. Mostly Selina Kyle. She knows that Becca Wayne isn't real, but the person she wishes was real doesn't exist either.)</p><p>It would be easier to only exist as Batman if he didn't have so many people pushing to be part of his life. Before Dick, before Jay, before any of the people who could look at him and understand everything he was and was not, it was easier. But much as Batman would like to pretend he works alone, there's a parade of people who slide into his life without his consent and do their best to know him. Some are more intrusive than others.</p><p>Maybe Gordon just doesn't want to know who else Batman could be. He's a damn good detective. He could have it all in twenty-four hours.</p><p>The people in Batman's life, collectively, are not a group of people between whom information passes easily.</p><p>(Jay laughs at him. "Guess I knew all the machismo was compensating for something. Don't worry, I don't give a fuck." <i>That was before, before.</i>)</p><p>The Joker, when people ask him about who else Batman might be, pretends he doesn't know what they're talking about.</p><p>And more, of course, outside of Gotham. Clark knows who Batman really is (for obvious reasons), but he never comments on it, which is infuriating. Ollie finds out and mocks him for it, but Ollie's opinion is not one that matters. Later he hits on Batman, who can then never forgive him. Diana is suspicious of him. And on, and on, and on.</p><p>But the ones who really matter are the ones who Batman can't look away from.</p><p>
  <b>DICK</b>
</p><p>When Dick meets Batman, on the worst day of Dick's life (so far), he's already who he is. He's flat-chased because he's twelve, and his parents call him Dick. It's the circus. Nobody's a freak there.</p><p>When Dick learns that Batman isn't just Batman, he's also Becca Wayne, it's like coming home. Then it is home. It's home for years. Dick doesn't have to understand Becca, but he accepts that there's a split between her and Batman, and that Batman is the one who's real. That part isn't hard. The hard part is just what Batman is like all the time.</p><p>Now Dick is seventeen and sitting high, high up on scaffolding on the side of Wayne Tower. It's two in the morning, so he's alone. He doesn't have a problem crying in front of people, but this is better.</p><p>Batman wants him gone, he thinks, and he doesn't know how to handle that. Batman, who has been his entire world. He's been so avoidant lately, and so snappish. Dick thought they were good. It was stupid to think that.</p><p>(Being in love with Batman doesn't help.)</p><p>The work has been dangerous lately. The Joker is worse, as if he ever wasn't worse. Dick has gotten hurt a few times, but not <i>seriously</i>. Everything else has been good, Dick thinks.</p><p>(He shouldn't have kissed Batman. That's what he did wrong.)</p><p>It's hot, even way up here. It's the middle of summer, and Dick can't figure himself out. He used to be so sure about everything. He's almost an adult now, and so many pieces of his life are going right. He has a boyfriend, almost (Roy doesn't want to use that word, but that's kind of the least of the Roy problems, so Dick hasn't been too pushy about it). But he can't stop chasing Batman. He's supposed to be getting top surgery next month when he turns eighteen, but part of him just wants to go back to being twelve and not needing any of that. Batman has paid for everything so far: food, cell phone bill, T, physical therapy, surgery. He's going to pay for college, if Dick wants.</p><p>So why is Dick so miserable? Batman has always been temperamental. Dick can suck it up and get past it. He can even apologize for kissing him, although he really isn't sorry.</p><p>The older he gets, the weirder he realizes the whole Batman thing in. It's hugely illegal, for once. And it's not like Dick's a cop (not now, not at seventeen), but that's wild, right? And the fact that Rebecca and Batman disappear into one another depending on whether they're upstairs or downstairs, in the cowl or in the dress, that's not normal.</p><p>Dick doesn't want normal. He wants Batman. He's just not sure if that's what he's going to get.</p><p>A little piece of him wonders, sometimes, if Batman is upset with him about the surgery. It's not something Batman has had. Dick's spent enough time with both Batman and Rebecca to know that. He's tried asking if Batman would ever do it, but he hasn't gotten much of an answer. Is Batman jealous? If he is, why? He could have that, too. He could have whatever he wants.</p><p>Dick knows, though, that everything is ending. He doesn't have to understand the reasons to know that.</p><p>
  <b>BABS</b>
</p><p>Barbara's parents aren't her parents. It takes her years to call Uncle Jim "Dad," even though nobody else has really been a dad to her. It takes him two fumbling weeks to call her Barbara. Then he never makes another mistake in her hearing. She spends years being weak with relief that she landed here, of all places, with him, of all people.</p><p>When she meets Dick, and when she gets to know him, she feels less alone than she ever has, but also more alone. She doesn't mean to be in love with him. She's a teenager, and she doesn't understand for a long time that being like someone doesn't have to mean liking them.</p><p>Before the first really bad thing, she and Dick and kind of dating, kind of not. She's pretty sure he's gay. She's not sure what she is. One night, the two of them are on patrol together, and they're sitting on a rooftop with the whole of Gotham spread out in front of them.</p><p>He winds his fingers through hers and says, "Why do you think we're all like this?"</p><p>"We're not that much alike," she says. Her approach to her gender is pragmatic and terrified. She just wants to leap ahead to the part where she doesn't have to think about it. Do the things she had to do, delete the past, be Barbara. Dick doesn't even bind his chest in public.</p><p>"Okay," Dick says, apparently untroubled. "I just wonder how we all ended up with Batman."</p><p>Babs doesn't think there's a reason. She thinks maybe people like them are drawn to other people like them, and Batman is the most like them of anybody. He's a beacon.</p><p>There's before, and there's after. Then there's the really bad day. She's told later that the Joker was trying to make sure her dad who isn't her dad was having a bad day.  Worse than hers.</p><p>The Joker says things Barbara will never forget when her clothes are off. He doesn't touch her, except to move her into the position he wants. It still feels like rape.</p><p>After, Barbara feels transformed. Nothing can touch someone after that. Surviving that shit means being able to survive anything. Barbara stops worrying about her relationship with Dick. It was never a relationship, anyway. Barbara creates Oracle, and Oracle doesn't worry about how to look, or even how to feel, mostly. Oracle doesn't care how worried anyone's dad is about a medical transition. Oracle has access to Batman's money and lets him help without feeling bad. Fuck that. This is his fault.</p><p>Barbara and Dick could lean on each other a lot, but Barbar is through with letting anyone close. It takes Dick almost a year to get Barbara to admit that they don't want to go by she anymore. Oracle is a lot of things, but not a woman, and Oracle has no intention of picking through the reasons for that. Something in Barbara's sense of self <i>has</i> shifted, but it would be wrong to give the Joker the credit. It's not to do with him, or Batman.</p><p>Babs isn't a total recluse, though, and eventually new people make their way in. Zie keeps everyone at arm's length until zie meets Dinah and Helena.</p><p>Things become a lot more complicated then, but also a lot better. Babs doesn't learn how to be soft again, but zie learns how to let people come close. Zie learns how to pull Helena's hair and fight in bed. Zie learns how to kiss Dinah really, really well.</p><p>Zie mostly stops thinking about gender at all, except for the times when zie's forced to by the appearances of Jay, Tim, and the others.</p><p>
  <b>JAY</b>
</p><p>Jayla wakes up angry nine days out of ten. Today she's angry. She realizes that makes her a huge fucking cliche, but oh well, nobody's counting. Nobody gives a fuck about her life.</p><p>Except somebody does, now. Batman does.</p><p>For the first five days, Jayla is just in the Cave. Batman is just Batman, and Jayla is just Jason. Nobody's called her Jason in years, not even her dad, who just calls her "the kid." But she doesn't know Batman's deal, and no way does she look enough like a girl, so she calls herself Jason.</p><p>Then Batman lets her come upstairs, and everything changes.</p><p>Becca Wayne has short hair that falls along her jawline. Her eyes are piercing blue, and she's muscular in a way that only shows when she's wearing something sleeveless. If Jayla didn't know better, she'd say there was no way in hell Becca and Batman were the same.</p><p>"<i>Oh,</i>" Jayla says. "Thank fuck. You're like me."</p><p>"What do you mean?" Becca asks, frowning.</p><p>"I'm a girl," Jayla says. And she tells Becca everything.</p><p>After that, Becca always calls her Jay. Nobody else does it, and it's so fucking sweet Jayla wants to cry.</p><p>"You have got to give me something else to call you," Jayla tells Becca, after a few weeks. "I mean, you're not a girl, right? Not even when you look like one."</p><p>Becca looks at her as if she's looking right through her. "I've never needed that," she says. "Batman's what matters."</p><p>"But not all the time, right?" Jayla says. "What did the other Robin call you?"</p><p>Becca frowns. "Becca. Or Batman. It doesn't--I don't spend a lot of time thinking about this side of myself."</p><p>"Not even enough to think about a name?" Jayla asks.</p><p>Becca is quiet for a minute. Then she says, "Bruce. That's what it would have been."</p><p>Being Robin is amazing. Jayla doesn't have to think too hard about being a boy or a girl, because she's just Robin. But there's a part of her, maybe a big part, that's still Jayla, in a way that Batman will never understand.</p><p>So she's angry, and she's restless, and she hurts. She punches people too hard. Bruce won't ever get what it's like to need to punch someone and not stop, because Bruce has never had to exist in the world.</p><p>"There's someone you should meet," Bruce says one day.</p><p>Oracle is the meanest, coolest person Jayla has ever met. Zie has an apartment and a bank of computers like nothing Jay has ever seen.</p><p>"You can call me Babs," zie says, but Jayla will probably never dare to do that.</p><p>They talk about a lot of things. Jayla has a lot of questions, some of them about Batman, some of them about the first Robin, some of them about being like they are. Someone who the world wants to fit into the boy box.</p><p>"I just want to make sure Batman isn't going to treat you like crap if you want to transition," Babs says.</p><p>Batman hasn't treated her like crap for any other reason, so Jay's not too worried. "Why?" she asks.</p><p>Zie grimaces. "A lot of reasons. But one of them is that if Becca Wayne's ward transitions at the same time Robin does, that's not exactly a hard one to solve."</p><p>Jay hadn't thought about that. Their lives are public by necessity. She isn't used to her life mattering like that. </p><p>When she asks Bruce about it, he says, "If you had to choose, what would you do? To be Robin and a girl, or to be Jayla? Would you be willing to hide one or the other for a while?"</p><p>She chooses to be Jayla, and to wait a few years until she can be all of her parts at once.</p><p>Aftwards, even when she'll always be a statistic, she learns to make choices all on her own, independent of Bruce. The choices he made for her were bad across the board, and she can get everywhere she needs to go without him.</p><p>
  <b>TIM</b>
</p><p>"I--feel like there's something I have to tell you," Tim says. He feels sick with nerves. Steph is going to knock him out. She's going to look at him like he's crazy.</p><p>"Yeah?" Steph says. They've got on a backwards baseball cap over their ponytail today, and they're chewing gum. Like something from a cartoon. They're always so, so perfect, and Tim doesn't want them to freak out.</p><p>Tim glances around. They're sitting in the courtyard at school, but almost everybody is gone for the day. "Okay," he says. His palms are tingling. "Okay, two things. I'm Robin. And I'm trans."</p><p>Steph gives him the most withering look. He knew it. He knew this would happen. "I know," they say.</p><p>"Oh," Tim says. "What?"</p><p>"I know you're Robin," Steph says. "I followed you. And I know Robin's trans, because that's what everybody says about the first one. Do you get why I'm mad?"</p><p>"Yes," Tim says unhappily. Steph followed him? Tim knows he's been going about this all wrong. Both the dating part and the telling Steph things part. </p><p>"You should have told me," Steph says. "Both parts! I mean, was I really gonna freak out about you? You know I'm not exactly cis!"</p><p>"I know," Tim says. He doesn't know why opening up to Steph is so hard. But she's so different. She talks about her gender all the time--her pronouns (both options), her opinions, what she does when people are shitty about it. It's not like Tim. Tim would sooner die than have anyone at school know.</p><p>"Why didn't you tell me you were Robin?" Steph says. "Were you afraid I'd ask to help out?"</p><p>That too, but--Steph's right, everybody <i>does</i> know that Robin's trans. And Tim didn't want anyone knowing that about him. Presumably Steph was going to find that out eventually, but not if he never had sex with them. It was an airtight plan.</p><p>"Sorry," he says. "I'm telling you now."</p><p>They stay mad, but only for a week or so.</p><p>The bigger problem is Oracle. Zie seems to <i>hate</i> Tim, and he can't understand why. At least, until he overhears a conversation between Oracle and Batman. Tim's supposed to be changing into his suit, and he lingers, leaning his head to catch the low voices.</p><p>"Did you know?" Oracle asks.</p><p>"Know what?" Batman asks.</p><p>"That Tim Drake was trans. Don't bother, Batman, I know you keep tabs on everyone in Gotham."</p><p>Batman steps back. "Why are you asking me that?"</p><p>"You know why." Zie turns away and Tim moves quickly to get out of sight.</p><p>What is the implication, he wonders? That Batman chose Tim for that reason? It's preferable to the suggestion that he <i>turned</i> Tim. That he took a girl who wanted to be Robin and made her want to <i>be Robin</i>.</p><p>There are days, though, when Tim wonders if that's true. If he saw Dick flying through the air at the circus when he was a kid and just got stuck on that. That he saw articles and youtube clips and everything else of Dick and wants that so badly that he wanted to be exactly that person, that body, that identity.</p><p>He decides pretty fast that he doesn't care.</p><p>
  <b>STEPH</b>
</p><p>It would be awesome to believe that Batman likes her. Steph's not going to say that's "all she wants" or anything, but it would be great. And she knows she can't be less competent than every single other person who works with him.</p><p>Steph spends a lot of time watching Batman. They spend enough time that they realize that Batman doesn't just live in a cave or whatever. He lives in a house and he's a <i>lady</i>.</p><p>So maybe Steph gets off on the wrong foot with him when they tell him that they figured that out.</p><p>Batman, looking down at Steph in her homemade Spoiler costume, says, "<i>No.</i>" He sounds furious.</p><p>"You're not a lady?" Steph says. Fuck.</p><p>"No," Batman says sharply. "I don't know what you think you know--"</p><p>Steph listens to the rant. She didn't realize she's figured out one of the biggest secrets, the biggest deals, in all of Gotham. She was more freaked out about finding out about Tim. Doing the math, they say, "Okay, you're trans, too."</p><p>Batman doesn't say anything.</p><p>"Me too!" Steph offers. "Well, I'm non-binary. She or they." </p><p>Batman still doesn't say anything. Maybe this is a binary trans people club. Or maybe Steph's personality sucks and Batman is just going to hate them no matter what.</p><p>"You should go," he says.</p><p>Steph goes. She goes back to doing what she was doing, which was fighting crime. They try not to feel too depressed about not getting into the club. Whatever, they've put their foot in their mouth worse before.</p><p>Steph tells Tim what happened, and he tells them where they fucked up. Batman is intensely private, which, okay, she could have figured out. Batman's identity is a big fucking deal. Okay. Steph is just so exhausted by that. Hide all the time and you don't have anything left of yourself to do anything else. They wear a mask because it's what people do, but they know who they are. Even their Mom and Dad know, even though it pisses them off.</p><p>But when Tim totally loses his mind and quits (something to do with having a healthy, normal family? Steph's heard of that, she guesses), something completely weird happens. Batman lets her be Robin.</p><p>He always uses female pronouns for them, which is whatever. They don't mind that, and after all, he's an old person. Actually, everyone pretty much does that, except Alfred, who says both "they" and "she" with total seamlessness.</p><p>"I don't understand you," Nightwing says to her, on one of the few occasions they meet. "I mean, is this a personal question? Do you--would you--"</p><p>"I don't care if you think I'm not legit," Steph says fiercely. "I know I am."</p><p>"You're just super femme," Nightwing says.</p><p>Seriously, fuck everyone. Steph is just going to keep doing this their way, and doing it well, and fighting as hard as they can possibly fight. They know who they are.</p><p>It's not until they meet Cass that anyone really looks at them and just <i>gets</i> them. And Cass barely speaks. But the way in which they're both loose from the mooring of "boy" and "girl" is the same, even if it looks and sounds different for both of them. That's probably why Steph falls in love with Cass.</p><p>
  <b>CASS</b>
</p><p>Cass doesn't have a word for it. Not for "gender" or for "he, she, they," any of that. Cass knows what moving feels like, and what someone's body can do. Cass knows how to kill.</p><p>When Cass arrives in Gotham and people are suddenly asking about words, Cass feels stuck and panicky. No words for that, either. Cass has spent the last several years just trying to understand language at all. Gender is a foreign country.</p><p>"What pronouns do you use?" someone in a purple costume whose name Cass forgets asks. "I use she or they, whatever."</p><p>Cass has to think very hard about most of those words. Nobody has ever asked that before. Cass can't remember what words other people have used when talking about Cass. Gender didn't matter, as long as you can kill the people you're supposed to be killing. Cass doesn't do that anymore, but the gap hasn't be filled with words. Some concepts just haven't come up.</p><p>The person in purple offers Cass something on a phone to read, to explain. The words swim in front of Cass, refusing to reconcile themselves into ideas.</p><p>"I don't do that," Cass says.</p><p>Even after Cass learns to read, Cass doesn't have an answer to Steph's question. Steph doesn't ask again, though. They seem to like Cass a lot. That doesn't make sense, either. Cass hasn't done anything likeable.</p><p>The woman at the coffee shop tells Cass, "You're a nice young man." Cass doesn't know if that's true. When she says that, Cass has to think very hard about whether to correct her. Ultimately, it doesn't seem worth it. People have called Cass different things, and Cass wears baggy clothes and has short hair, which seems to signal people to be confused.</p><p>It Cass's head, things don't get explained with words. Everything is movement. Cass could explain to anyone how Batman moves, how Steph moves, how Tim moves. All of those things are important. Words aren't.</p><p>Dick, who is Nightwing (so many words for just one person) asks, "Hey, I know everyone's asking. We need a name for you."</p><p>Cass blinks at him. "Cass."</p><p>"I mean…" Dick waves his hand. "You know. A code name."</p><p>Oh. Cass thinks about the names. Batman. Robin. Nightwing. Oracle. A name like that would be right.</p><p>"Does it have to be Bat Boy?" Cass asks.</p><p>Dick laughs. A lot. Cass looks at him gravely until he stops.</p><p>"Sorry," he says. "It's a reference to--It's not important. No, it doesn't have to be that."</p><p>Cass thinks about how people pick the words that identify them. Steph likes "Spoiler" because it's a joke. They spoil crimes. But Steph is also a person who doesn't stick with just one word. Confusing. Batman picked a word that says who he is, loud and clear, to people who can decode that kind of thing. Not Cass.</p><p>Robin is a different kind of word. It's one that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But Steph is Robin now.</p><p>"Something that's just me," Cass says. Not something Cass will have to share, or that will pin Cass down. That's the key to winning a fight. Not getting pinned down.</p><p>"Sure," Dick says. "Anything you want. You don't want to be Batgirl, right?"</p><p>Cass shifts slightly. When Cass realizes Dick isn't reading the posture as meaning anything, Cass says, "No. Not any of those. Orphan. I can be Orphan."</p><p>
  <b>DAMIAN</b>
</p><p>"I want an heir," Damian's grandfather says. "A grandson."</p><p>Well, too fucking bad. Damian fucked that one up. Her grandfather is convinced that it doesn't matter, that as long as she looks like a boy and lives like a boy, that's just as good.</p><p>But she's not a boy. Not in her furious heart that bashes around her ribcage whenever anyone calls her one. Which is always. Her mother and grandfather are adamant.</p><p>The first person who believes her is her father. At least, they claim he's her father, but she knows that can't possibly be true. Because Batman is like Damian.</p><p>He's like Damian, but she doesn't think her mother and grandfather know that. So they're lying to him about her. Fuck them. She'll keep the secret. He knows he's not her father by blood, she knows he's not, but he's her father anyway.</p><p>Even in Gotham, Damian is furious all the time. She kicks, she bites, she doesn't let anyone change her name, even though people think it would be easier. She can feel the frustration and rage coming from her father all the time. She's not what he wanted. She's not a good Robin, but honestly, who the fuck was?</p><p>"You're going to hurt someone," he tells her, when they're driving too fast in his car after a fight.</p><p>"Yeah," Damian says. "That's the point." It's what she was raised for. She's a weapon and the whole world is an enemy. She can taste blood in her mouth.</p><p>"Or get hurt," Batman says.</p><p>That's just a side-effect of being a fighter, Damian figures, so she just laughs.</p><p>"Damian," Batman says.</p><p>She doesn't answer. She's staring out the window, chewing her lip bloody.</p><p>Back at the cave, she asks Batman about the suit in the case, the one that doesn't belong to Dick. It's got a skirt. "There was a girl Robin before, right?" Damian asks.</p><p>Batman hesitates. "Not just one. Yes."</p><p>"I want the skirt," Damian says.</p><p>"You can have a skirt," Batman says without missing a beat.</p><p>Damian is allowed some things and not others. A skirt but no gun. Long hair but not a sword. She learns, eventually, that she doesn't even need to ask for those first things. They're just hers for the taking. She still hits too hard, and Batman gets mad and tells her she's just like Jayla. Damian knows about Jayla. She's the one who's like Damian: short and rude. She goes by "Red Hood" she's always following Nightwing around and making his life hard. Good. Nightwing sucks.</p><p>Except none of them suck. Even Tim doesn't suck. She doesn't trust Tim at <i>all</i>, but then she sees the scars on his chest. He's a boy just like Damian's a girl. The hard way. Damian grew up thinking she was some kind of vicious monster, grown in a lab, not real and no good, but now she's realizing that she's just one of many.</p><p>The next time she sees her mother, Talia looks at Batman in total disgust and says, "You made him soft."</p><p>Batman just looks at her from behind the mask. "I didn't make her anything."</p><p>
  <b>TERRY</b>
</p><p>Terry McGinnis is a bad kid. That's what he thinks, anyway. He causes his family a lot of problems. He stays out a little too late, and he sometimes goes to clubs, and once his family had to pay for a hormone-blocking implant when he was twelve. Now he's older, and his dad's gone, and he still feels the overwhelming guilt of being bad and difficult all the time.</p><p>By the time he becomes Batman, he's already had three surgeries, on top of the hormones. He's unrecognizable as a problem.</p><p>Because he's used to not even thinking about it, he can't wrap his head around Becca at first.</p><p>"Are you Oracle?" he asks. He's heard about Oracle. The strange, robotic, genderless being that helped Batman out, back in the day.</p><p>"No," she says. They're sitting on her expensive couch, after she told Terry off for stealing the Batman suit.</p><p>"Then…I don't get it," Terry says.</p><p>Becca sighs. "I was Batman," she says.</p><p>Terry just stares at her. "Wait."</p><p>Becca looks at her.</p><p>"Because no one would take you seriously as a girl?" Terry asks.</p><p>"Don't call me a <i>girl</i>," Becca snaps. "I'm three times your age. Probably more. And even then...I <i>was</i> Batman. This is just…" She waves her hand. "A disguise."</p><p>"Oh," Terry says. Duh. He's being so stupid. "You're...They called it transgender back then, right?"</p><p>Becca grimaces. "So I'm told."</p><p>"Then I have to call you something else, Mr. Wayne," Terry says.</p><p>"Hm," Becca says. "Someone used to call me Bruce."</p><p>Terry thinks of him more as Mr. Wayne, or Batman, but it's useful to have the name. And eventually, Terry says, on a mission, "Would you ever want people besides me to call you Bruce?"</p><p>Bruce doesn't answer, and Terry thinks the radio might have shorted out until Bruce tells him what corridor to turn down.</p><p>Terry is coming to learn that Bruce has always been a control freak. Nobody has ever asked him who he is or how he feels because he's their boss. Nobody has been close enough to push him into being honest, except maybe, Terry gathers, one of the Robins. The other thing Terry learns is that Bruce is afraid.</p><p>Terry realizes he's the only one who knows Bruce well enough to do anything about that. Bruce trusts him, remarkably, and Terry isn't going to waste that chance.</p><p>One night when they're in the cave, Bruce at the computer, Ace at his feet, Terry says, "Hey, old man."</p><p>"Mm."</p><p>"It would really be something if you showed those assholes at your company who Bruce Wayne really is."</p><p>Bruce tsks loudly. "Don't be stupid," he says.</p><p>"Well, I'm not," Terry says. "I mean, do you really like this? Pretending to be a woman all the time? It sucks. I haven't done it since I Was like nine, but it sucked then. Bet it sucks more for you."</p><p>"I'm a little old for all that," Bruce says. His blue eyes are hard.</p><p>"Nobody's too old for anything," Terry says. "You know, there's a part of you that knows you're still Batman. So why can't you know this, too?"</p><p>Bruce doesn't answer. Terry thinks he's being blown off until Bruce finally says, "Maybe."</p><p>"Schway," Terry says, grinning at him.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>